Have That Dance
by Breakinglight11
Summary: "He bought roses on the way over. It was all he could think to do. His guts churned, but he knew he had to see her." Steve finally goes to see Peggy, after all these years. Post "Avengers."


**Have That Dance**

By Phoebe Roberts  
~~~

He bought roses on the way over. It was all he could think to do. His guts churned, but he knew he had to see her.

It had all been an overwhelming rush when he first woke up, seventy years lost between then and the last moments he remembered. But the significant things stood out, bright as blades as just as cutting- one kiss, one date he'd never made, and a broken promise that echoed down the decades. They had needed him, there were so many things to be done, and even when he did give himself a moment to think about it, it was also so terrible and impossible he thought it might swallow him. But even then, he couldn't stay away.

His whole life he'd waited for her. The right partner. It had taken him ages to believe it when she looked at him that way, ages to even consider that she might be feeling something for him as well. And even then, it was hard to escape the nagging insecurities left over from the skinny pipsqueak he'd once been. He was still growing accustomed to his new body then, and it still felt like a suit he was wearing more than his true self. Since his transformation he'd certainly had his share of female attention, chiefly from the USO girls back when he'd been working the war bonds circuit. But it had always made him deeply uncomfortable, that hungry gleam in gazes that bore down on him like a ten-ton truck and crashed square into the brick wall of his new body— never breaking through, he felt, to see the man inside it.

It wasn't like that when she looked at him. On the contrary, she seemed to look straight through the soldier and into his soul. She was strong in a way that so many around her resisted that she ever could be. It was natural to him, though. His mother had been a career woman, even before his father's death in the Great War, and with a swing shift in a TB ward and a sickly child to raise by herself, Helen Rogers taught him early how strong a woman could be.

One kiss. Even the ice couldn't dull the memory of the sensation. They had touched so little back then. It was the done thing for a man and a woman in their position, the respectable thing. She had a hard-won military career to think of, built up against dozens of powerful men who dismissed her and roughnecked soldier boys ready to take the slightest advantage of any feminine weakness. It would not have done for her to gain a reputation. Even with Captain America.

They had to be roses. He was no expert on flowers, but he knew what red roses meant. They were the color of that beautiful dress she wore in the cantina all those years ago. The ice hadn't dimmed that memory either.

He asked for her at the front desk when he arrived. Margaret Rayfield, her file said. They were expecting him. He'd sent her a note, by mail, asking if he might come see her, and she wrote him back with a time. When the receptionist asked if he was a relative, he said no, and nothing more. After a moment, he was taken to a small sitting room, with a tapestry armchair sitting in the sun that streamed in through the window. He thanked the orderly, took a deep breath, and stepped into the room. And for the first time in seventy years, he saw her.

She was sitting in that chair, legs crossed daintily at the ankle and a crocheted afghan thrown over her lap. Her head was bent when he entered, but she lifted it at his approach. He stopped in his tracks at this, still a ways off, partly so she wouldn't have to crane her neck to look at him, and partly because he was afraid to draw too near.

He all but froze at the sight of her. She looked so small and fragile there, the vibrant energy he remembered diminished into a startling frailty. The face that turned up to him was lined and weighted, and her gaze fell on him with trepidation. Even on that changed face, he could read her look in a moment. She was ashamed, he knew, ashamed of what time had done to her, stolen away the beauty of her youth. He'd felt that way when he'd first met her, felt that sense of unworthiness looking in the eyes of someone so beautiful when he'd felt so much the opposite. More than her age, more than her frailty, to see that look of shame on her made his guts twist.

Even so, she did not look away, and she found her voice before he did. "You came."

"Yes," he managed. "I'm sorry it took so long."

"I saw the reports on the news. How they'd found you. How you were back... after all this time."

His throat became dry suddenly, and it was his turn to feel ashamed. "I meant to call you. I wanted to. I just…. I didn't know what to say. And then, everything happened, and I—"

She cut him off with a trembling raised hand. "Not a word of that. I understand. Just I wanted to call you, but… I didn't know what to say either."

He swallowed. "But I couldn't... I couldn't not see you." At once he remembered the bouquet in his hands. He took a few tentative steps forward and offered it to her. "These are for you."

After a moment she took them, regarding the deep red petals for a long moment. Her frail shoulder shook as suddenly she began to cry.

Steve dropped to his knees beside her. "I— I'm so sorry. If I shouldn't have come—"

She pressed wrinkled palm to wrinkled face, blotting the tracks of her tears. "Oh, no! Never that. It's only—" She blew out a hard breath, then her words tumbled out in a flood. "Oh, Steve, you don't know how I've missed you. After you were lost, and then all this time… I thought you were dead."

"I was. In a way. But… after the procedure… I don't know how it happened, but I survived."

She dabbed at her face, then turned up her gaze to his. She looked at him then with such unreserved fascination it startled him. "Look at you," she breathed. "My God. I'd almost forgotten how beautiful you are."

The intensity of the words made him cast his eyes aside. For some reason he almost felt ashamed. "Peggy…"

"That wasn't the sort of thing ladies said in those days, but I wish I had." She reached out with skinny, knotted fingers and touched his chin. He could feel her hand shaking, ever so slightly. She turned his face back to look at her. "There never was a man as beautiful."

With infinite gentleness he reached up to lay his hand over hers. "Not as beautiful as you."

She laughed at little at that, for a moment easing her tears. "And look at me now. I'm an old woman."

He smiled. "Still." And she was in a way, in that she was still her, he could still see her in there, past the wrinkles and the age, the same eyes and the same delicate shape of the face and the same mysterious smile. He concentrated on those things, those that were most like what he remembered.

A sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, broke from him. "It's… it's so good to see you. I was afraid I'd never see you again."

Her expression grew sad again, almost sorry. "So much time has gone by. A lifetime, Steve."

As if against her will, her gaze wandered to the side table, where a dozen framed photographs sat arranged on a lace runner. Children of various ages, young men and women, all with features he recognized- a delicate chin here, big brown eyes there, the same familiar smile. And there was a gentleman sitting beside Peggy, both of them with silvered hair and hands folded over one another's. The last image was of him as a young man, easy and handsome, with dark hair and thin moustache neatly combed and a wide, honest smile on his face.

"A lifetime, yes..." Steve touched the frame of the photograph. "Is this your husband?"

He regretted asking as he saw a new sorrow flit across her face. "Charles. Yes. He passed almost ten years ago."

Steve regarded the image. He made himself smile. "He looks… he looks like a decent man."

"He was." Peggy realigned its placement on the table, not looking at him. Then she bowed her head and her whole body

rocked with a burst of fresh tears. "I'm sorry, Steve."

He shook his head hard. "You don't have to apologize—"

"I did wait, you know. As they searched for you. Even after everyone else had given up hope." She laid the photograph down flat against the table, as if she could not bear to look at it anymore. Still she did not turn back. "I never wanted to be with anyone else. But the years went by, and you stayed gone…"

He laid a hand across her shoulder. She felt so fragile beneath his fingers. "You had a life to live."

"At that point, it seemed like Charles made more sense than waiting for a ghost."

A spasm of pain flitted across his face, but he smoothed it away so that she would not see. He understood, she should not feel at fault for that. He affected a lightness of tone as he reached out to touch the frames of the other photographs. "Are these your children?"

She smiled a little at that. "My grandchildren." She titled the images toward him, showing him a family of fair, pleasant faces with familiar dark hair and the gentleman's strong jaw. "This is Luke, he's going to university this year. And this is his sister, Annabel. My eldest is their mother. Alexandra."

He examined the picture of her daughter. She looked to be entering early middle age, but she was still a lovely woman, and the resemblance was so strong it was shocking. His guts gave a small twist. Was this what Peggy had looked like in the decades after the war? Was that the face he would have watched her grow into if they'd had the chance to spend those years together?

Those thoughts threatened to break his composure, so he moved onto the photograph beside it. A good-looking man, several years younger than Alexandra, grinning with an easy charm and likeability. "And him?"

Peggy took that one into her hands and held it close. "Her younger brother. Our son."

"What's his name?"

Her expression twisted but she met his gaze. "Stephen."

He exhaled hard, somewhere between a chuckle and a sob. "Oh, Peggy."

She set her son's photograph back among the rest of the family and regarded it. He saw her collapse a little then, burying her face in her hands. "Charles was a good man, and I loved him, but… he wasn't you, Steve." She looked up after a moment, the tears now flowing freely. "Nobody could ever be you."

Her expression was like a punch in the guts. He had to say something, do something to take away the pain he'd caused her, given her to carry for all these years. He reached out and took her hands in his own.

"I'm— so sorry. I'm so sorry I had to leave you. I thought— I thought it was the only way. But I didn't want to. I wanted to do… so many things… that I never had the chance to."

She clung to him with surprising strength in those frail old hands. "We had a date."

"That was where I would have started. And I would have learned how to dance." He looked aside for a moment, suddenly unsure, but he had to tell her, and he had to look her in the eye when he did. "And… I would have told you that I love you."

She drew in a small gasping of breath. "Oh, Steve…"

Now that he had pulled the words out of him he could not stop them, they tumbled out of him in a flood. "I wanted to. The time wasn't right then, so I didn't. We weren't at that place yet. But I felt it, I felt it then, and now… now it's way past time. I love you, Peggy. You're the one I was waiting for."

The tears flowed freely from her dark eyes, the one feature about her that in all these had remained unchanged. "I love you, too, Steve. Perhaps it's foolish to say now, but I do. I always have, even all through the years with Charles. And God help me, I always will. For however long that is."

He leaned in close. "Peggy, I'm here now-"

"No!" She laid fragile fingers across his lips. "None of that, Steve. Don't… don't say anything about that, not right now." She bent to press her brow against his. "Just… just be here, for a while. Be here with me."

He watched as her eyes drifted closed. "I've waited seventy years to do that." He paused, and gently squeezed her hand. "I still owe you a dance, you know."

Her eyes flicked open again. She pulled away, sat up. "Yes. You do."

"You promised to teach me."

"Yes. It's about time you learned."

Steve stood. He reached out to her, and she laid her arms across the breadth of his shoulders. With infinite care, he helped her lift her frail body from the chair and held her on her feet.


End file.
